


Callback

by atamascolily



Series: A Grief Observed [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Skywalker Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 20:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14119866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: When Leia dies of her wounds in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor, Han dedicates his life to her legacy, while Luke retreats to find his elsewhere.





	Callback

**Author's Note:**

> Luke's line about firewood is a quotation from "Genjokoan," by Japanese Zen master Eihei Dogen.

Leia insists her wound isn't serious - just a blaster shot to the arm, nothing more. As soon as Han wraps it up, she's up and about as if nothing happened. The Death Star explodes in a rain of shrapnel and fire overhead, and the battle is over. Of course, there's some mopping-up action to be done, but with the Emperor and half the fleet destroyed, the remaining Imperial forces see the writing on the wall and quickly surrender. 

That night, after the bonfire and celebration in the Ewok village, when they stagger back late to the little hut where Leia's fuzzy friend indicates they should retire, she's hot and feverish to the touch. Han, more intoxicated by the potent native homebrew than he expected, raises an eyebrow, but she brushes aside his concerns. 

"I just had too much to drink, Han, I'm fine," she insists, so he rolls over and lets her sleep. 

In the morning, Leia's arm has swollen and she won't open her eyes. Han, nursing a killer hangover himself, fumbles with the medkit and applies more antibiotics to the wound, but she doesn't get better. By mid-afternoon, when it's clear something's very wrong, Han gets Luke and Chewie to stay with her while he hunts down Lando. 

"Leia's real sick. Looks like a resistant infection." Han doesn't mince words. "We have to get her out on the _Falcon_ to real medical care right away." 

Lando doesn't hesitate. "Let's go." 

Forget the Kessel Run. They carry her out to the clearing where Lando's docked the _Falcon_ and make it back to _Home One_ in record time. Han punches his ship faster than he's ever done before, never mind she's rattling around after the ordeal Lando put her through yesterday. 

None of it matters. By the time they get to the sickbay, Leia's ranting and raving, and there's nothing the meddroids can do for her. Her eyes are rolling back in her head and it's not clear if she can see the four beings and two droids clustered around her bed. Her family. 

"I love you," she gasps, and dies a few minutes later. 

When it happens, a long silence stretches out over the ward. Lando looks down at the ground. A muscle in Luke's cheek tightens. Han swallows and forces himself to breathe. Chewie reaches out to grip Han's shoulder. Mercifully, even Threepio is quiet, sensing Han and Chewie's hair-trigger tempers. 

Finally, Han reaches out, and smooths a strand of hair back from her still features. 

"I know." 

***

Everyone mourns in their own way. The little fuzzballs on Endor barely knew her but they're so upset by the news there's a huge funeral with a bonfire and more redberry wine that evening. Maybe they just like throwing parties. Whatever. The booze is free and Han drinks more than is good for him, 'til Chewie threatens to break his neck. He stops drinking after that, but it's too late to avoid another hangover the next morning. 

(Thanks to a quirk of Wookiee physiology, Chewie can't get drunk on Ewok homebrew, so he's the designated flyer.) 

"Do the Jedi have anything comforting to say at this point?" Han asks Luke, as they stand side-by-side at Leia's funeral pyre on Endor, watching the flames take her body away from them. 

Luke shrugs. "If they do, I've yet to hear it. Death is a great mystery for all of us, no matter how powerful."

"Do they say anything else?" 

"'Firewood becomes ash and it does not become firewood again.'" 

"Uh-huh." 

"I told you it wasn't comforting." 

A long silence. The kid's partial these days to long bouts of staring into space punctuated by non sequiturs, and Han suspects another one is on its way soon. 

He's not wrong. "She was my sister, you know," Luke says after a while. 

"What?" Han actually does know, Leia told him after the explosion, but he decides it's better for everyone to let Luke tell him all about it without interruptions. Besides, Leia was kinda sparse on the details. 

"She was my sister," Luke repeats, the past tense catching in his throat. "We were twins. Separated at birth to keep us hidden from the Empire." 

He's so calm and earnest despite the crazy story that Han can't believe he's lying. Whatever it is, Luke believes it to be true. 

"Twins, eh? So that makes you a prince, huh, kid?" 

Luke hunched his shoulders. "I don't think it works like that. Not that it matters, now that Alderaan's space dust. Our real father was Darth Vader." 

Han knows that grief makes people crazy. But even by Luke's standards, this is completely nuts. Still, it would explain those crazy Jedi powers-- and how goddamn creepy Luke can be sometimes. "Oh. Well. That--that's hard, kid. That's really hard." 

"Yes," Luke agrees, staring into the flames, as if he's searching for something else lost along with Leia. "It is." 

"Well, you're still you, Luke," Han says, still not quite believing this whole parentage business, but deciding to roll with it. He hugs Luke because the kid so clearly needs it. "It doesn't change anything." 

"No," Luke says. "I just thought - she'd be here to share it with me." 

"So did I, kid," Han says quietly. "So did I." 

***

The whole Alliance mourns. Leia's been with them since the beginning and everyone knows her, no matter when they joined up. Her father (foster father, if Luke is right), Bail Organa, was one of the organizers of the Rebellion, and she was a double agent in the Imperial Senate from sixteen until her cover was blown three years later with the plans for the Death Star 1.0. She's a figurehead, a firebrand, a light and spirit of hope and an anchor all her life. Her death is a big loss for the Alliance leadership and they know it. 

To everyone's surprise--including his own--it's Han who steps in to fill the gaping void of Leia's absence. It's not something he asks for, it just happens organically, as he finds himself doing what he knows she would have done if she were still with him. He never admits it out loud to anyone, but her lectures about responsibility over the years appear to have struck home. 

The truth is that the fledgling New Republic - coupled with peace and freedom in the galaxy - is Leia's legacy, the only one she ever wanted. He doesn't want her struggles and her life to have been in vain. The least he can do is carry on for her. 

It's Han, with Chewie and Lando attached like burrs at his side, who becomes the New Republic's top negotiatior. He goes about it in his own way, damning propriety, with guns blazing, in ways that makes the more experienced diplomats tear their hair out, but his unorthodox methods _work_ and soon he's got most of the regional governments eating out of his hand. He's hard to resist when he flashes that crooked smile and suggests something clever and audacious, and he knows it. 

Diplomacy, it turns out, is just one big con after another - and Han Solo has been running cons all his life. Who knew it would make him respectable, as well as famous? 

In Leia's absence, it's Luke who retreats. Han watches it happen in slow motion and does what he cans, but he's so busy now he can't be everywhere at once. And Luke doesn't want to be found. 

Even before Leia's death, Luke hung onto this world by a thread. She was the only one who could drag him back from those dark, melancholy solitude he wrapped himself in like a cloak. With his sister gone, there's no reason for him to stick around and he doesn't. His heart isn't there anymore, the way Han's is. 

Luke talks privately to Han, big dreams of rebuilding the Jedi order, but claims he needs more training before he's ready to handle students. One day he vanishes, taking off in his X-wing for parts unknown and doesn't return. He leaves Artoo behind so Threepio can have company, and Artoo is distraught for months until he teams up with Threepio to see how much the two of them can annoy Han. 

Han never even considers scrapping them; a protocol droid is a useful tool, even one as neurotic as Threepio. Besides, Leia liked him - there's no accounting for taste. Artoo is a damned nuisance, but a useful one, so Han gives him free reign to do as he pleases. It's a policy that pays off handsomely at critical moments during more than a few diplomatic crises. 

Of course, the remnants of the Empire don't go quietly. It takes another two years to capture Coruscant, and just as the dust startes to settle, Grand Admiral Thrawn shows up to make trouble. Thrawn's last campaign culminates in a siege of Coruscant and just when things are getting grim and Han is toying with the idea of surrender, Luke shows up out of nowhere with an entire fleet of reformed smugglers and saves everyone's asses. 

Suddenly, Han's signing a peace treaty with Admiral Pellaeon, and Lando is shaking hands with everyone and Chewie is making all of the Imperial officers nervous by existing. Suddenly, the war is over--really over--at last. 

"Just like old times, eh, Han?" Luke asks at the inevitable award ceremony, a smug grin plastering his face when Han grudgingly admits it to be so. Except Han's the one giving away the medals now, and standing next to Luke is a short redhead smuggler with a lightsaber at her belt, who can't stop shooting daggers at her wingman during the ceremony. Han's been around the block enough times to know that with that much sexual tension in the air, Luke's bachelor days are numbered. 

"Looks like the cub might try to make Jedi the old-fashioned way, huh?" growls Chewie in Shryiiwook, and Han can't keep from snickering despite the fact that the redhead now wants to murder them, too. 

Of course, the ceremony is also the perfect time to unveil the statue of Leia by the new Senate Building. There's a big fanfare and to-do with lots of speakers; Han cuts the ribbon, while Chewie smashes a bottle of good Corellian wine to bless it in some bizarre alien ritual Han doesn't fully understand. It looks good on the holonet, of course, and it's a great PR coup for the New Republic. 

Fuck them all. Han would give anything just to have her back again. 

"Sweetheart, we won, it was all worth it. I just wish you didn't have to die for it to happen," he says quietly under his breath when it's over. No point in trying to hide the tears anymore, even with the crowd still milling about. "I love you." 

She's not here to answer, so he has to do it for her: "I know."


End file.
